Chapter Text
Definition
whiteout noun
white·out ˈ(h)wīt-ˌau̇t
: a surface weather condition in a snow-covered area (such as a polar region) in which no object casts a shadow, the horizon cannot be seen, and only dark objects are discernible
also: a blizzard that severely reduces visibility
Dabi
When his fire burned as hot as it possibly could, and every cell of his body was ready to give, his mind still fought. He might not have the constitution, or the personality, or the kindness or morals or whatever the fuck the world wanted from him – but he was stubborn as hell.
An indomitable will.
Death was going to have to drag him kicking and screaming into the abyss.
And then: the ice came.
Not a true awakening, they said later, but what the hell did they know? They weren’t there. They didn’t feel the moment his mother’s blood finally rose up, tired of being suppressed by his father’s fire.
The ice came, and everything went silent.
Shouto
If there is one thing in this world Shouto is curious about, it's his eldest brother.
Touya always was a mystery to him. The one sibling who knew the most about what Shouto went through in his childhood. The one sibling who was the farthest away from him. In the years since the war, that distance may have lessened some, sure, but it’s not like Touya magically reappeared.
Shouto finds he doesn’t mind.
He’s been in the game of heroism long enough by now to become intimately familiar with trauma and all the reactions to it. He’s seen the long-term effects of abuse on the people he saves. He’s studied it too, afternoons and weekends spent watching lectures and reading books. Curiosity, mostly. Maybe a little personal motivation too.
They all carry scars, him and his siblings.
Dabi is an understandable outcome. He is what Shouto would have become, maybe, if the anger inside him had continued to fester. It didn’t. Luck, mostly, because he got put in a class where he made real friends. Because his Quirk was good enough that he survived long enough to find better days.
Because he found people who gave him the support and love he needed.
All Dabi found was the streets, alone and hurt and sixteen years old.
As much as Shouto condemns Dabi’s criminal actions, he understands his brother. More, perhaps, than Dabi realises. More, definitely, than the rest of their family does. Shouto never could blame him – not even as the blue fire raged and he felt his skin blister under the heat of Dabi’s anger.
It makes it easy to visit, after the war. To speak to his eldest brother, wrapped in machines and safely kept alive inside his strange metal and glass tube.
Easy to keep visiting when he’s transferred to a hospital, and later to a center specializing in helping burn victims recover.
When Dabi is released from the rehabilitation center into a life of house-arrest at the Todoroki mansion, he doesn't look like he's as filled with rage as he was during the war. Oh, it’s still there. Shouto can feel it, sometimes, simmering under the surface like flames pushing against Dabi's skin, but there’s more now, too.
Or, well. Maybe there always was, and it’s just that Dabi is comfortable showing them, now. In either case, Dabi is more than the man they saw during the war, but not exactly the child they lost.
Dabi, not Touya.
They are one and the same, really, but Shouto, out of all the rest of their family, understands how sometimes emotions will eat you alive and spit you out on the other side as something new.
He understands, too, that sometimes you cling to the only thing you can control, especially in a life that has put you in Quirk Suppressors and an ankle monitor, and stuck you in your childhood home. Shouto would never say so out loud but he thinks that the main reason Dabi refuses to answer to Touya is because that’s the name their father insists on using.
Spite, it seems, is still alive and well in Dabi.
Touya. That's the name their mother and other siblings call him when they forget themselves. The shadow of the child they all thought died lives on the tip of their tongues, keeping them all locked in a time of raised voices and raging fires.
Shouto takes care to use the name his brother wants, regardless of who he's addressing. He tries not to push, but to offer companionship and understanding. Acceptance, with no strings attached. He tries to show that he, at least, will respect whatever Dabi decides. To let the interactions be on Dabi’s terms.
If it pisses off Endeavour too – well, that’s just a bonus, really.
Shouto visits Dabi in their childhood home several times per week, to make sure he’s doing okay. They spend a lot of time together. Bickering and talking, sure, but mostly they'll sit together in silence.
Getting to slowly know the man more is a privilege. It’s more than he thought he would get, and he treasures every new bit of knowledge. It's not much, maybe. His siblings frequently mention how they feel like Dabi doesn't truly let them in, but Shouto knows that sometimes what you need is not to talk, but for someone to simply see you. He doesn't need to know every thought his brother has. He doesn't want anyone to know every thought he has, so why would he demand that of someone else?
Still, he never tells Dabi that all he wants is to know that he truly saved his eldest brother during that last battle, instead of condemning him to a slow and torturous existence in the halls of the home that once buried him alive.
It's a burden he will not foist upon anyone else.
He'll carry the question as he watches over his family. He couldn't protect them, once. He will, now. Never again will he let any of them feel unwanted and abandoned. His father created him for his own, selfish reasons. If Shouto's Quirk is his own, not his fathers, then logic dictates that so is his reason for living.
He's still slowly learning to know himself. Figuring out who he is removed from his father's shadow is harder than he thought it would be. Finding out what motivates him is easier: it's the people he loves and making sure they're okay.
Purpose, burning with the same intensity as Dabi's blue flames once did.
Shouto
Never let it be said that Endeavour never taught him anything.
If his father could neatly sidestep all the legal and social consequences of his crimes simply because of his status as a top Pro Hero – then so can Shouto.
He expects Midoriya to try to talk him out of it, really. Stupid of him. He forgets that his friend has always been willing to see beyond the criminal to the person underneath. Of course the hero who wanted to save Tomura Shigaraki would understand Shouto doing whatever is necessary to make sure Dabi has a chance of a real recovery.
He's pretty sure Midoriya sees a lot of faces in the people he tries to help, these days. They all do. It's normal after what they went through, apparently. It comes with the job. It comes with surviving a war.
Midoriya, who has a teaching certificate and a heavy focus on what causes children to turn to villainy, is not one to carry grudges. He just smiles when Shouto tells him what he wants to do, green eyes bright and hands already reaching for a notebook as he starts outlining potential plans.
Shouto definitely expects Bakugou to protest, but he just grunts, and when Shouto questions him, tells him to fuck off. With Bakugou, the lack of arguments is as close to a blessing as you can get.
On Midoriya’s suggestion, he builds up to it little by little.
He mentions Dabi in interviews. It's just here and there, at the start, but soon he’ll make sure to add anecdotes in almost every interview he gives, no matter how much his PR team begs him not to. He develops a very public interest in campaigning for true understanding, treatment and rehabilitation for people who find themselves in situations where crime is their only solution.
It doesn’t take long before everyone knows that Shouto loves his eldest brother, despite the many horrific crimes the man committed.
When it’s time, he shows up at the office of the HPSC President, giving his best dead-eyed stare, flanked by Midoriya and Bakugou. He makes sure to tell the man in no uncertain terms that either the government lets his brother move with Hawks to Hokkaido, or all three of them quit their jobs as Pro Heroes – and that they’ll make sure to tell the entire country why.
When that isn’t enough to make the President immediately acquiesce and promise his support, Bakugou sighs. He somehow manages to make even that sound contemptuous. It’s very impressive.
“The fuck’s wrong with you? Don’t you fucking realize that if you make Dabi stay here, that means Hawks’ll come here too? You really that secure in your standing as the Prez? Cause we all will make damn sure to endorse him, if he decides to come for you. OR your job.”
Shouto isn’t entirely sure Hawks would come here, if that happened – but he’s not going to say that out loud. Bakugou never likes to be interrupted when he’s threatening someone.
Midoriya, meanwhile, is giving his best ‘I’m All Might’s chosen protege and I am so disappointed in you’ stare. It’s usually very effective.
It helps when Midoriya then sighs, and says in that gentle voice of his that "Toshinori Yagi wanted me to add that he, too, supports Dabi’s continued rehabilitation into society and considers this what any civilized country would do. He’s very fond of Hawks, after all. A lot of us Pro Heroes are.”
It's not done with just that, of course. It's not a decision up to the HPSC alone, but the President of the Commission has a lot of pull. A motivated one especially so.
It doesn't take long. A day and a half later they get the approval. The official paperwork takes longer, but that's a mere formality, really.
He buys Midoriya and Bakugou dinner afterwards as thanks, and to celebrate their victory.
Dabi
The arrival of his ice didn't change much in itself.
For a while, he expected it to. In the medicinal machine they placed him in as he slowly dragged himself back from Death's door, he had visions of that silent, deadly coldness. Of a world that would finally, finally give him true silence. Something to dampen the rage he had lived with most of his life.
Ice saved his life, and now it gave him hope that somewhere on the other side of this, he could find something different.
It never did.
The ice could never remove his tunnel vision. He'd been living with that reduced visibility where only his end goal ever mattered, and without that? Without the fire leading him forward?
He was lost in the dark.
Shouto
Almost six years after Dabi left the Todoroki mansion for the forests of Hokkaido, Shouto sits down on a train to follow in his footsteps.
Well. Not exactly. He’s only visiting, for one thing – and he’s taking the train instead of riding shotgun in Hawks’ red truck like Dabi did. But still: he’s going to Hokkaido.
It’s the first time any of them have been allowed to visit Hawks and Dabi at their cabin. Every time they've asked to come up north, Dabi has turned them down. The few times they’ve seen him since he moved have been when he’s come down for his medical follow-ups, or for his regular check-ins with the people overseeing his parole.
This year, the authorities decided to start allowing Shouto to take over the check-ins.
He’s pretty sure it’s because after almost thirteen years of peace, the HPSC has other concerns than a retired villain who has not made any trouble since his arrest, and who is living quietly in a forest far, far away from the majority of the populace – no matter how fearsome he once was.
It doesn’t really matter why, though. Shouto’ll take it.
Seeing his brother again, without the distraction of the rest of their family is exciting. Seeing how he lives now is exciting too. Hawks sends them photos now and then, but Dabi himself has always been stingy with the details.
None of them have ever gotten to meet any of their dogs.
As the train moves along the tracks, it honestly feels pretty similar to those times he propels himself into the air with his Quirk. That feeling of being suspended in air, unencumbered by everything that came before. It's as if by leaving the ground, he sheds his childhood and his name, and all that comes with them. For a moment, there's freedom.
It's probably just the adrenaline, he's pretty sure. Without the ethical questions and worries a fight brings, too, which probably is why it feels so different from when he goes head to head with someone intent on causing real damage.
He likes travelling like that. He trusts his own reflexes to make sure he'll land safely. He trusts his training, and his Quirk.
There's no training for this, though.
He didn't quite figure out how to talk to Dabi before he moved to Hokkaido. He tried, of course, but he's never been the greatest at bonding quickly with someone. He's not like Midoriya or Bakugou, who crash into social situations as if they're life-or-death-situations and always seem to come out with new friends. He's quiet and often too blunt. Too literal. He knows it takes a moment for most people to truly warm up to him.
He's not sure he had enough time with Dabi for that before he moved, and it's not like they've had much opportunity since.
They will now, though.
Far away from their family, the Todoroki estate, and medical personnel. Outside of Dabi's visits to Shouto's own apartment, this will be the first time they can spend time together somewhere else. Maybe they can find more things they have in common.
Shouto is always a Todoroki. Even if most people know his hero work for him now, not his father, the name hangs around his neck every day. A weight, pulling him back down to earth every time he almost forgets his origins. An anchor, some days. A lodestone occasionally.
Even after Touya burned and burned at Sekoto Peak, even after he changed his name and identity, he never shed their family, not really. He was still only focused on his revenge. In a way, the two of them were so similar then. Both of them, stuck in that family trauma.
It changed when Hawks came. Hawks, with that shared past Dabi refused to talk about. The ex-hero with his red truck and that huge parka he shoved into Dabi's arms. With a charming grin and one short conversation, he did what no one else has ever managed: he convinced Dabi to move on. To move away from them, and the Todoroki name and legacy.
And now here Shouto is, on a train speeding towards the north, where Dabi lives a life far removed from anything they ever knew as children.
Maybe he can figure out how Dabi did that.
Maybe they can talk about it. About being a Todoroki, with everything that entails, except this time without all that anger and the fire.
Maybe this time, they can just be brothers.
Shouto
After his arrival it takes Shouto about two minutes to realize that Hawks calls Dabi ‘Touya’ now. He’s not entirely sure what to think about that.
On one hand, Dabi was always very, very insistent that his entire family call him by his chosen name. While some of their family had protested this, Shouto had decided that he had already come too close to losing his eldest brother, too many times. If Dabi wanted to be called Dabi, that was his business. Shouto’s business was making sure Dabi knew that he was wanted and respected and loved just as he was.
"Took your fucking time, birdie," Dabi says, aggression and accusation colouring his voice.
Hawks just laughs. "Blame your grocery list. Took a minute to find everything you wanted. You could've come with me if you were gonna miss me this much."
Dabi huffs. "Don't flatter yourself."
It sounds bad. It sounds like the sort of conversation that might lead to an argument and raised voices and all Shouto thinks of when he thinks of established, long-term couples. The only one he truly knows is his parents, after all.
The words are harsh, but here they are: Hawks, one hand hovering over Dabi's cheek but not quite touching. Dabi, looking aggrieved and rolling his eyes, yet his one remaining hand is curled in Hawks' shirt, stopping him from leaving.
"You're not that cold. You can fucking touch me."
Hawks smiles. He touches Dabi's cheek, leaning in to rest his forehead against Dabi's.
"Missed you too, Touya."
"Yeah, yeah," Dabi grumbles, but Shouto sees his hand slip around Hawks' waist.
There's a softness to the moment that belies the words. There's no picture-perfect front kept up to keep ugly truths hidden. They sound like-
Dabi kind of sounds a little like Bakugou, really. The way he snarls and bites and uses that to cover up his affections.
There's an uncomfortable swooping sensation in his stomach. He's always had some…reservations when it comes to romantic relationships, because while he knows good ones exist, he doesn't really know what that looks like. Maybe it's something a little like this, though?
Hawks and Dabi have been together for a long time, now. Hawks is clearly fine with how Dabi talks, the way he's beaming as Dabi slots their mouths together in a quick kiss.
He doesn't know. He doesn't want to focus on that right now, because that way lies thoughts he's not entirely ready for. Better, then, to focus on his brother who is now turning towards him.
"Hi," Shouto says.
Dabi's eyes are on him, and he feels the way they weigh him for a long minute before Dabi finally opens his mouth.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Dabi
"Touya?"
The name echoed in the darkness.
Voices, throwing the name back and forth, until it was everywhere, pressing in on him.
He used to like his name. It's a cool name. It was a gift from his parents, welcoming him into this world, but fire's greatest power is changing whatever it burns. Nothing is ever truly untouched by it. He was barely more than a toddler when they pushed him into Endeavour's Hellfire to temper him, only to abandon him when he proved to be flawed. Without his father's forge, he resorted to his own flames, and there he twisted and warped and curled around himself until he became unrecognizable from that bright, hopeful kid they knew.
Can a blade that's already been damaged by being thrown into the cold too soon ever be saved? Going by the way his body kept trying to fall apart, the answer's probably no.
How many times did his family see him without recognizing him, before he revealed himself?
In the Todoroki estate there were photographs of that kid. From tiny little baby to surly, young teenager – and then? Nothing.
Touya, for all intents and purposes, died.
When Toga called him Touya, it felt fine. It thrilled him; his compatriots – the whole world, really – knew the truth, and his revenge was nigh. His name felt like a call to arms.
It felt like a promise.
Then the final battle, where his revenge failed, and everything that followed after, and then? Then hearing his name felt like expectations.
A whole family of people who wanted to push and prod until he was theirs again. Until he fit the name.
Toga didn't know Touya-the-kid. She only cared about him, and whatever name he went by didn't change anything for her.
In the halls of the Todoroki family, every name was always a promise. He used to think it was a promise of who to become. Who you were, and your place inside the family. Then, he thought maybe it was more like a leash. Something to chain you down where he had decided you belonged, no matter how much you knew you could do more.
He would have given anything to hear someone call him 'Dabi' again.
Just once.
Shouto
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
The words hang in the air. Dabi is staring down his nose at Shouto, eyes icy and hard. They make Shouto think of their father. Hawks gives them both a look, before clearly deciding to let them sort it out and disappears further into the house. The dog that had followed Dabi into the hallway as he came to greet them trails after him.
“I’m the representative for-” he starts, but Dabi cuts him off before he gets further.
“I know. Why is it you?”
“I told Hawks I was coming, but-”
“I know. Why is it you?”
“They asked if I could do it, and I said yes,” Shouto explains, a little lost. It feels like Dabi is making a point, but he’s not entirely sure what it is.
“I’m sorry,” he adds, because clearly he's done something to piss Dabi off. He keeps his voice soft, not wanting Hawks to overhear him. Hawks may have been involved with his family more than anyone else, from his role as a hero in the war and as Dabi’s boyfriend after, but it’s still uncomfortable to think about how much the man knows.
There’s a memory of Hawks standing close, his entire body angled in a way that telegraphed both support and protection. The hero's voice – usually warm, but now as icy as if he was born from Himura blood too – asked if Endeavour was responsible for the scar on Shouto’s face.
Dabi doesn’t reply to his apology. There’s a look sent his way instead. Exasperation. Irritation. He turns around, heading into what looks to be the living room. At a loss for what else to do, Shouto follows him.
“I was selfish in coming here. I should have let them send someone else,” Shouto elaborates. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Why did you?” Dabi asks, taking a seat on a worn leather couch. Another dog is sleeping there, large and brown. It flicks an ear at their arrival, but doesn't bother opening its eyes.
Shouto considers it for a while. He wants to give the question the answer it deserves. Dabi doesn’t interrupt his thoughts, instead letting him stand there quietly as he tries to sort out his motivations, and how to tell it in a way that doesn’t make it seem like he’s blaming Dabi.
“The war bothers me,” he says at last. “I spent a lot of time worried that you survived – that I made you survive – only to be put back in our father’s care. He’s…he’s different now than when we were children, I know you know that too, but it also wasn’t your choice to go there afterwards and it felt wrong.”
“Fucking hell. You really are perfect, aren’t you?” Dabi says.
His voice is low, and his face is turned away from Shouto as he talks. It’s as if he’s saying it to himself, not to anyone else.
It doesn’t sound like a compliment.
It makes Shouto unsure if he’s supposed to reply or not. Every step feels dangerous now. One misstep and his brother might take real offence. One wrong word, and maybe all their progress is lost.
“And?” Dabi says, louder now. “Did your visit meet your expectations? Am I well-behaved enough to be allowed to stay here? Do you need to see more, to make sure I'm not secretly ravaging the country-side or sowing the seeds of another rebellion?”
The bitterness is unmistakable. Is that what bothers him? Shouto doesn't know. He doesn't know Dabi well enough to tell, even after all that time spent together after the war.
He waves the question away. “That part’s just a formality. No one wants to change that, least of all the government. It’s just that they can’t stop checking in, in case someone starts asking questions. They have to have the paper trail. But I can tell them to send someone else, next time, if you’d rather. They want someone they think strong enough to stand against you, so there's not a lot of choices but Togata would be willing to go, I’m sure.”
He considers it for a moment. “Probably not Bakugou, though.”
Dabi barks a laugh at that. “I don’t imagine he would, no.”
"I can ask, though, if you'd rather-"
"Just. Fucking stop," Dabi sighs.
Silence settles over the living room. It doesn't feel like the companionable silence they used to share at home. This one feels darker. Oppressive, almost.
"Would you like something to drink, Shouto? Dinner won't be ready for a few hours yet, but I can get you something if you're hungry?"
Hawks is standing in the doorway. He's looking between them with furrowed brows, as if searching for answers to something.
"No thank you," Shouto says. "I'm fine. Mom packed a lunch for me, so I ate on the train-"
That's as far as he gets. Dabi's on his feet, striding out of the room without a word. A moment later, there's the sound of a door slamming shut.
Shouto
"I think I better leave," Shouto says, breaking the silence.
The brown dog slinks down from the couch. It stretches and yawns, displaying huge teeth, before disappearing down the same way Dabi went.
Hawks, who was also staring after Dabi, sighs. He doesn't argue. All he says is a simple "no more trains today, I'm afraid."
If Hawks, who knows Dabi best, agrees with him, then leaving is definitely the right choice. Shouto tries to swallow down the disappointment. He never thought they'd magically become super close. He's pretty sure they never will, not with all that stands between them, but he had hoped he and Dabi could find a bit more common ground.
He read once that no siblings grow up with the same parents, or in the same home. It's true, he supposes, but out of Fuyumi, Natsuo and Dabi, his eldest brother is the only one who comes close to Shouto's own childhood. To the expectations and the training. To growing up with Endeavour, instead of Enji Todoroki.
Except maybe that's not really right.
Fuyumi said once that she remembered better days from when she was little. Vague memories of a tiny child, but she made it sound like maybe the father she and Dabi had was Enji, not Endeavour.
Maybe that's why Dabi hated him so much.
Shouto knows he's not responsible for Endeavour's actions. Logically, he was a child who never had any choice in anything. Neither, though, did Dabi. It all keeps coming back to their childhood, doesn't it? It's a maze of trauma and memories that he can't ever escape from, not really.
He shouldn't have come here.
Dabi moved here, away from everything, and started a new life. Shouto shouldn't have come dragging their family issues to his door.
"I'm sorry," he says again, this time to Hawks.
“You didn't do anything wrong," Hawks says firmly. "C'mon, I'll show you to the guest room so you can put down your stuff."
They pass a closed door. The brown dog lies outside it, signalling clearly that one of the house's humans is beyond it.
Past another door leading to a bathroom and then Hawks gestures to a small room at the end of the hallway.
"Rest for a bit if you want. I'll come find you when dinner's ready?"
"Sure," Shouto says. "That will be fine. Thank you for your hospitality."
"I’d say you’re welcome any time, Shouto, but…” Hawks trails off.
“It’s okay,” Shouto says, because it is. He’s always known that his place in his family is in many ways conditional. They love him, of course, but his existence was the catalyst for so much bad for them. His existence was contractual. He has more scars than just the one on his face. There’s a certain relief to have someone not pretend that everything is fine.
It’s almost nice, having someone who’s not insisting that he’s as wanted and loved as everyone else.
"Would you mind taking me to the train station tomorrow? I have enough to satisfy the parole board."
Hawks nods at him, mouth closed and eyes tight.
In another life, having Hawks as a brother-in-law might've been nice. Hawks doesn't make Shouto feel like he has to pretend. He can just be his usual, blunt, maladapted self and it's fine.
He loves his family. All of them, even as they stumble in their effort to include him without accidentally triggering anyone's trauma. Even, maybe, his dad, although he's still not entirely sure about that part. There's obligation, if nothing else, and familiarity. That's not nothing. It's just that as much as they include him, they're always so careful. It's never that natural, relaxed manner of being together he sees his friends have with their families.
He had hoped that Dabi would maybe be the one who didn't walk on eggshells around him.
Shouto sits down on the narrow bed in the small guest room. The sheets are soft flannel, and the walls are solid wood. It's cozy. Rustic, that's what they call this, right?
He lets himself flop back, hitting the duvet with a soft noise.
In a way, he got exactly what he wanted.
Dabi didn't hesitate.
Dabi had no issue making damn sure Shouto knew he wasn't welcome here.